Lecture Topic John and allusion: Shakespeare

What is allusion?
Allusion is a literary technique. It is something you can specifically cite as a technique when writing essays. We could talk about it as cross-referencing; or referring to other texts within your own text. In Brave New World we tend to get two types of allusion - literary allusions, or references to other literary texts; and Biblical allusions, references to the Bible (while the Bible is technically a literary text, it tends to be treated as its own type of allusion.) So, if youve ever made reference to a book, TV show, Bible story, website, meme, etc. in a piece of conversation, then you are making allusions. I.e. its like that episode of The Simpsons when..., It was a bit of a David and Goliath struggle..., etc. John constantly makes reference to Shakespeare and the Bible as a means of understanding the worlds he encounters throughout Brave New World.

John and Shakespeare

Johns number one literary allusion is to The Complete Works of Shakespeare. More specifically, he uses Othello, The Tempest, Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet as a means of making sense of the world he comes across. He uses Shakespeare a lot, these are a few choice examples: In Chapter 8 John uses Hamlet as his inspiration to stab Pope: "When he is drunk asleep, or in his rage / Or in the incestuous pleasure of his bed." Hamlet speaks these lines as he contemplates murdering his uncle for sleeping with his mother and killing his father. It helps John justify his decision. When John comes across Lenina asleep, he turn to Romeo and Juliet to guide his decisions: "Did he dare? Dare to profane with his unworthiest hand that No, he didn't." Through Romeo he is able to understand the situation and act accordingly. When John is considering the nature of God with Mustapha Mond in Chapter 18, King Lear helps him to articulate himself: "As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods; they kill us for their sport. Thunder again; words that proclaimed themselves true truer somehow than truth itself. And yet that same Gloucester had called them ever-gentle gods." Here we see John struggling to balance the destruction that the gods cause, with their life giving and spirit sustaining qualities. Also worth noting how John sees the words as truer than truth itself. When John is trying to explain his desire to do something meaningful to earn Leninas love, he turns to The Tempest: "But some kinds of baseness are nobly undergone." He is best able to express the joy in suffering through Shakespeares expression. For the full extent of the references, go here: http://www.shmoop.com/brave-new-world/allusions.html

Art
The sheer number of allusions to Shakespeare is a great representation of just how much John relies on Shakespeares words, worlds and characters to make sense of the experiences he has in both Malpais and the World State. Shakespeare allows him to have a meaningful dialogue with Mustapha Mond at the end of the play, Shakespeare helps him remain firm in his beliefs about monogamy, it is what causes his anger at Lenina, it is what keeps helps him express his initial awe at the World State as well as his eventual defiance of it, etc. It seems that without Shakespeare, John would be lost in his understanding of the world. The way I read this is as a representation of the power and importance of art. Shakespeare is often seen as the greatest play write ever, and so we can perhaps see him as symbolic of art in general. What we have here then, is art directly influencing and enriching Johns life. By seeing his life through an artistic lens, he is better able to understand and appreciate the world he inhabits. I think Huxley could be arguing that art helps us to be more human because it can help us to express and understand our beliefs and values. It helps to bring our worlds into sharper focus, as John says: [the words] gave him a reason for hating Pop; and they made his hatred more real; they even made Pop himself more real." How often have we had a feeling clarified for us because of a song or a piece of art?

Appreciation
An important question to ask though, is to what extent does John understand the things that he is saying. While I think John generally uses Shakespeare correctly and significantly to unpack his world, there are some questions around just how well he understands what he is saying. For example, I think he uses Romeo and Juliet well as a means of exploring his feelings towards Lenina. He shares the same passion that Romeo does. However, he seems completely unaware of just how different Juliet and Lenina are. Juliet is a completely innocent, virginal child, whereas Lenina is a fully sexualised adult who cannot believe in monogamous love. And so, in the end, Johns use of alignment of Lenina with Juliet is highly inappropriate and simply frustrates and angers him further when she doesnt meet those standards. Beyond this, John states, "These words and the strange, strange story out of which they were taken (he couldn't make head or tail of it, but it was wonderful, wonderful all the same) when he first starts reading Shakespeare. This suggests that he doesnt understand what he is reading, just sees the images and uses those to guide him. Without a full appreciation and understanding of what he is reading, the images control him, rather than him controlling the images. This almost equates itself to hypnopaedia, these lessons (images) shape the world for him without him fully appreciating the impact of the things hes saying. What we can take from this is the idea that in order for art to be able successfully help us interpret the world and express ourselves, we need to understand and appreciate the piece of art were using. There seems to be the belief on Huxleys part that art is hugely important, but that the art must be understood and appreciated to be meaningful. Arts power to express is not enough; it shouldnt just be a means of interpreting our lives, it should be a means of enriching our understanding of ourselves and our encounters.